Wednesday, 10 February 2016

Valentina Albanese

Valentina
is an Italian one-make specialist who often drives a SEAT, and is involved with
the make on an official basis. She has achieved good results in individual and
team racing.

Born in
1974, she got her first steps in motorsport in 1994, winning a “Volante Rosa”
women’s driving competition, organised by a motoring magazine. Although she was
not from a motor racing family, she had been interested in cars from a young
age. She gravitated towards saloon racing from the start. Two years later, she
took to the track in the Citroen Saxo Cup. She won her first championship in
Italy in 1998, the Ladies’ class of the Saxo Cup.

Sticking
with one-make championships, she had her next notable success in 2001, when she
won some rounds of the Smart Cup in Italy, and was second in the championship. These
were the first outright wins of her career.

That
year, she also had her first races in the Volkswagen Fun Cup, driving a Beetle.
The Cup would be her main sporting home until 2008. During her time in the Fun
Cup, Valentina won several races, and was invited to be a part of the Uniroyal
team in 2005. For two seasons, she was part of a Uniroyal all-female team with
Francesca Pardini, following on from the “Rain Tyre Ladies” (Sylvie Delcour,
Fanny Duchateau and Sabine Dubois.) In 2008, driving for a different, mixed
team with Luca Trevisol, she won the European and Italian Fun Cups.

Valentina,
driving alone, also raced in the Campionato Italiano Turismo Endurance that
season, driving a diesel SEAT Leon TDI. This was the first year of a
partnership with SEAT that has lasted many years. Driving for the Italian SEAT
team, she won one race, and was tenth in the championship.

In 2009
she once again drove for SEAT in the Campionato Italiano Turismo Endurance, and
won the diesel class. Alongside Gianni Giudici of Scuderia Giudici, who was the
runner-up, she dominated the season.

In
2010, she was third in the main class of the same championship, driving a
similar SEAT Leon, powered by petrol this time. Although she was not able to
record a win, she finished on the podium a number of times. Of the four SEAT
Italy drivers, she was the highest-placed.

A
period of relative competitive inactivity followed. In 2011, she only made some
guest appearances in the Ibiza Cup section of the CITE, as she was working for
the SEAT team. She retained her SEAT links in 2012, but seems to have only
carried out media work for the marque.

Her
only big race during this time was the Zhuhai 500-mile race in December 2012.
Sharing a Mercedes C63 AMG withMichela Cerruti, she was second overall. The
team challenged for the win at some points during the race.

In 2013, she seems to have concentrated on
test-driving for SEAT, although she also demonstrated a Mercedes in Jerusalem.

Again,
in 2014, she tested cars for SEAT, but did not race.

She
returned to competition in 2015, in a SEAT Leon. She won the Italian Endurance
Touring Car Championship (CITE) outright, partnered by Jordi Gené for part of
the season. After leading for most of the season, she won the penultimate race
to seal her victory. It was her fifth win of the year, from eight races, and
she was forty points ahead of her nearest rivals, Stefano Valli and Vincenzo
Montalbano.

Away
from her racing and her promotional work for SEAT, Valentina works as a lawyer.
She has stated that her motorsport ambition is to race a Super Touring-spec car
in a major championship.